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Blog Commenting Policy

Ye Olde Blogge here has gotten some pretty heavy traffic lately. Some of what I have been writing is provoking strong feelings and people are leaving comments. That’s awesome. If I didn’t want comments, I wouldn’t leave my blog open to them. However, this is my space on the Internet, I pay the bills, and therefore I make the rules. There aren’t many, but here they are:

Anonymous comments are fine. I can understand being shy about putting your name out on the Internet.

I check the IP addresses of commentators. Sock puppetry is not cool. If you work for a major international information corporation and leave a comment while at work in support of said major international information corporation, yet do not identify yourself as an employee of this hypothetical major international information corporation? I will call you out and call you out hard.

I don’t censor comments and me letting a comment stand on my blog does not mean I agree or disagree with what it says or facts it represents. If you disagree with a comment, feel free to offer up a comment of your own.

A slight addendum to the above: I will delete (or not publish if you are a first time commentator) comments that are unecessarily profane, insulting to me or others, obviously defamatory of myself or others, a sock puppet comment or otherwise a blatant advertisement.

I generally don’t reply to comments. I try to make all the points that I want to make or get my thoughts across in my posts. I’m not interested in debating with people and frankly, I don’t really have the time. But don’t worry, I get notified when I get comments….I do see them all.

That’s all, really. I mean, really, these can be summed up in the biggest Internet rule of all, to wit: Don’t be an ass. It’s surprising how many people have trouble with that one, though, huh?

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1 comment for “Blog Commenting Policy”

First let’s take a quick trip down this website. Each time someone visits this site information about them is given away, free of charge, to Sitemeter. A free service whose value is evidently acceptable. As is implicitly disclosing to readers the employers of some commenters.

Returning to the issue at hand. It is rather amazing to find that people can be bought for $149. That is, after all, what we’re talking about here. If the give-away is such an influencer that it warrants so much emotion then it has crossed into the realm of the author’s price. A pad of notepaper wouldn’t warrant such a reaction so obviously it is under the threshold.

This quote is really interesting ” free books from publishers in the exhibit hall…because I never do business with those vendors.” It implies that you do business with the vendor in question here. What, then, is the nature of that business? I thought for a moment the issue was about some version of ‘ethics’ that placed librarians above doing anything to be influenced. Perhaps that means that when questioned about something covered by the free books you snapped up you’ll intentionally choose not to tell a patron about them because of the ‘influence’ you have by reading those free copies?

So where do you draw the line? A conference sponsored by the vendors, where they subsidize each attendee’s cost of attending certainly can’t be acceptable, right? What about receiving grants funded by a vendor to attend a conference? What about law school libraries who receive significant subsidies from these vendors at the expense of every person in the country who accesses the legal system. Or is it only unacceptable for a vendor to have people come to a session and provide input on a product? Seems like that should be banned according to the Glassmeyer standard. Similarly if the vendor traveled to where the librarians are that would similarly be an expense and could be considered a gift. So we’re left with vendors who can only get input on new products from those who can afford to and offer to, travel on their own dime. While a product designed and implemented without librarian input might well help break out of old paradigms it might not be the best move by the vendor.